November 27, 2018

Tech Staff Controls Digital Strategy and CX

Here's a sign of the times: WPP is merging its fabled Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson agencies to create Wunderman Thompson, which will be “distinctively positioned” as a provider of “end-to-end solutions – through creative, data, commerce, consulting and technology services – at a global scale.” Such combinations have been an industry trend for years. Healthy, yes. Distinctive, not so much.

Here’s a more surprising finding: a survey from the SoDA digital agency trade group found that technologists outnumber marketers when it comes to owning digital strategy (45% tech vs 28% marketing), owning customer experience (39% tech vs. 23% marketing) and even picking digital agencies (47% tech vs 46% marketing). This is a big swing from last year, when agency selection was run by 66% marketers and just 28% technologists. Ordinarily a result like this would suggest that most survey respondents were tech people, but that wasn’t the case here: 52% were C-level, 19% were in marketing and just 17% were tech execs. Much more here on digital agency trends if you’re interested.

Doubtful that technologists are really in charge of CX? Maybe you’re right: a CMO Council and IBM survey found that 61% said marketing owned customer experience strategy. Just 13% of respondents were CMOs while 61% were CEO, President, or COO. So less bias in that audience than you might expect. Only 20% said they had real-time access to all relevant customer data across the organization. Technology gaps were the most common obstacle to removing data silos (53%), although talent (48%) and time (45%) were close behind.

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